IDF Conducted Operation in Lebanon to Search for Missing Navigator Ron Arad

The Israel Defense Forces said its troops carried out a special operation overnight Friday in eastern Lebanon aimed at locating the remains of missing Israeli Air Force navigator Ron Arad, but the search did not yield results.

According to the military, ground forces searched a cemetery in the An-Nabi Shit area in eastern Lebanon following intelligence that suggested Arad may have been buried there. However, the IDF said no artifacts or remains connected to the navigator were found, and the possibility that he was buried at the site has now been ruled out.

The military added that the evacuation of residents from nearby villages created what it described as an operational opportunity to search.

Air Force Provided Support During Operation

The IDF said Israeli Air Force aircraft provided cover for the ground forces during the mission. According to the military, several individuals who approached the soldiers during the operation were struck by airstrikes.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry reported that 16 people were killed during the incident. The IDF said none of its soldiers were injured during the operation.

Lebanese newspaper An-Nahar reported that the operation involved four Israeli helicopters that landed in eastern Lebanon. According to the report, Israeli forces then advanced on foot to a cemetery where they searched.

Local sources cited by the newspaper claimed the troops were assisted by a Lebanese security officer who had previously been abducted by Israel and allegedly directed them to what was believed to be Arad’s burial site.

Family Calls for Protection of Soldiers’ Lives

Following reports of the operation, Arad’s wife, Tami Arad, said the family opposes any efforts that could endanger Israeli soldiers.

“Our desire to know what happened to Ron stops the moment it involves risking the lives of IDF soldiers,” she wrote on social media. “In our view, the sanctity of life comes before the obligation to return the remains of a soldier for burial.”

She added that this position has guided the family since Arad disappeared nearly four decades ago.

Decades-Long Effort to Uncover Arad’s Fate

Arad was captured on October 16, 1986, after his aircraft was hit during an Israeli Air Force mission targeting PLO positions near Sidon in southern Lebanon.

The pilot flying with him, Yishai Aviram, was rescued by Israeli forces, but Arad was captured by the Shiite Amal Movement militia and initially held by senior operative Mustafa Dirani.

According to Israeli assessments, Dirani transferred Arad in 1988, and he was later believed to have been handed over to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps operating in Lebanon.

Israeli intelligence investigations later concluded that Arad likely died around the time he disappeared from Dirani’s custody.

Intelligence Operations Over the Years

Over the decades, Israel has conducted numerous intelligence operations in an attempt to uncover information about Arad’s fate.

In December, Saudi-owned broadcaster Al-Arabiya reported that Lebanese authorities suspected the Mossad had abducted a former Lebanese security officer, identified as Ahmed Shukar, who was believed to possess information related to Arad.

According to the report, the officer was taken from the town of An-Nabi Shit in the Baalbek region. A source in Lebanon’s judicial system confirmed to the newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat that the abduction allegedly occurred that month.

In 2021, reports also surfaced that Israeli intelligence agents had briefly detained an Iranian general in Syria in an effort to obtain information about Arad. At the time, then-Prime Minister Naftali Bennett confirmed that the Mossad had carried out a complex operation aimed at uncovering new details about the missing navigator.

However, defense officials later acknowledged that the operation did not produce the information investigators had hoped to obtain.

Iranian Links Long Denied

Iran has consistently denied any involvement in Arad’s disappearance or any knowledge of his fate.

However, former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani once indicated that Iranian officials had information about Arad at an earlier stage, though he said that “his traces were lost.” Rafsanjani reportedly conveyed this assessment to then-UN Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar during the late 1980s.

Despite decades of intelligence efforts and sporadic new leads, the fate of Ron Arad remains one of the most enduring mysteries in Israel’s military history.